MAME
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Overview
MAMETM stands for the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. The project began in 1996 when Nicola Salmoria developed a suite of emulators for specific arcade machines. This software was subsequently merged in to a single program in 1997. The merged suite of hardware emulation code was named MAME (pronounced in the same way as maim in the English language). MAMETM is now a trademarked name, having been registered by Nicola Salmoria. Further information on this trademark can be found at MAMEdev.org.
The first release of MAME was made in February 1997 (version 0.1). This project has now grown in to one of the most popular, and widely distributed, hardware emulation packages.
MAME is most popular for running MAME ROM images, which are binary dumps of arcade videogame software. This software is packaged in to a standardised format in order to be run on the MAME emulation system.
Controversy
There is controversy around the moral and legal aspects of copying, distributing and using MAME ROMs, although MAME itself is legal as it contains no copyrighted code.
All but a handful of the thousands of MAME ROMs are copyrighted by their original authors, and without owning the original Arcade PCB or purchasing an original license from the author, you have no legal right to run MAME ROMs and are infringing copyright. The vast majority of MAME users use it for illegal purposes.
Some people consider MAME morally okay as the majority of games within MAME are no longer being manufactured and are considered Abandonware as the original manufacturer isn't selling original versions, and for many other games the copyright owner is no longer in business. The official MAME team also refuses to emulate games that are less than 5 years old even if technical specifications don't exist, and has been known to not emulate certain games such as Golden Tee when requested.
Others point out that another key aspect of MAME is preservation, with such arcade platforms as CPS2 with "suicide batteries" mean that original PCBs may be scarce within the next few years and MAME being the only reasonable way to play the games.
One way the MAME team justifies itself by stating the aim of the MAME isn't to allow the user to play the games, but to emulate the system.
Due to MAME's success and its source code availability many people have seen fit to distribute modified versions. Some times these modifications are to add particular features; to get MAME working on different platforms or to add games which the original MAME team deem ill fitting their perceived goals or guidelines for adding games. Unfortunately, many of these derivatives will add very modern games which goes against the grain of the core MAME Team's philosophy, adding to the controversy.
Release History
A warts and all look through the history of MAME as described by the MAME Dev team themselves through their releases.
| Early versions | The beta 30s | 50s, 60s & 70s |
|---|---|---|
| 80s & 90s | 100s & 110s | 120s & 130s |
|---|---|---|
Trivia
Did you know?
- There never was a v0.32 to avoid confusion with the seperate project MAME32. With MAME v0.33, beta increments were released leading up to a full release.
- The amount of work necessary to make release candidate revisions and a full-blown release for the 0.37 line was deemed to much. A decision was made to break away from the beta numbering of the 0.33-0.37 releases and a jump from 0.37b16 to 0.53 which is where the versioning system would have arrived at had the beta releases not been attempted.
- Unlike many interpretted, no version 1.00 would be released. By version 0.99 the numbering scheme had settled on simply the version being simply 0.<next release number> and as such the next release was 0.100.
- Versions 0.36 beta 10 through 0.36 beta 16 inclusive are no longer officially available. The reasons being a number of games were added which did not fit with MAME's ethos and aims. Games such as gambling and non-emulated (more simulated) games were the given reason in version 0.36 release candidate 1.
